When one of us failed to see something lying in plain sight, for example a school-bag, my father would brandish it and use an expression which seems to have fallen into disuse: "What's this, then, Scotch mist?" It's a peculiar thing to say, and I assume it was something that was current in the army during WW2 or in engineering factories in the 1940s and 50s. Perhaps it was a catchphrase from a long-forgotten radio show? I have no idea why "Scotch mist" entered into the language in this way, but as a result it has always been a mysterious entity at the back of my mind.
It lurks there along with "bread and pullit" ("What's for tea, Mum?"), and various other disturbing and unresolved playground and nursery rhyme themes and scenarios. Why on earth was Wee Willie Winkie running through the town in his nightgown? Is the moon really an aching drum? Why would anyone need to have buckles on their knees? And what is a vainite? Funny, how as you get older these things start to emerge again, but leaving most of their mystery behind, back there with the Scotch mist.
5 comments:
Vainites? That's funny -- our end of Stevenage it was fainites ("fey knights").
Well, I didn't have it written on a card, or anything (although at times that might have been a good idea). Maybe for every yard (um, playground?) closer to the Danelaw, the less "voiced" the initial consonant...
Mike
Well, the Wiki link you provided does give both. I think (and so do you really, of course) the more recent history of Stevenage may be more relevant to the variation! Also, although I've often heard that Danes' End (as you but not all your readers know, a village to the east of Stevenage New Town) is so named because it marked the westernmost boundary of the Danelaw, the location of Danestrete (to the west of Danes' End and both our junior school playgrounds in between) tends to give the lie to that. Maybe the Danes spread east after Danes' End had already been established and so yclept?
I think most of N. Herts fell within the original Danelaw, but where exactly the border posts were ("Just four of you in the cart, sir? Mind if look in the back?") I have no idea. I suspect it moved around with allegiances, marriages of convenience ("A whoreson DANE? Kiddest thou me?") and that sort of thing.
There's a hill up behind my grandparents village, Pirton, called Danefield, where some warrior-type burials were found. I suspect any skeleton with a spear that turned up under the plough was called a "Dane", and thus various place-names arose. That is my theory (to invoke Monty P. again).
Mike
"Dane" in Dane End is from an old English word for valley, found elsewhere as dean, eg Rottingdean
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